


Tactile

by logdate_unknown



Series: Zasr [1]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Antennae, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Touch-Starved, Touching, antennae petting, can be read as platonic touching, he has so much trauma, he needs therapy guys, zim is lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:35:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21771106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/logdate_unknown/pseuds/logdate_unknown
Summary: As Zim and Skoodge become closer to one another, Skoodge discovers something which Zim has been cruelly deprived of all of his life, and vows to be the one to set it right.
Relationships: Invader Skoodge & Zim, Invader Skoodge/Zim
Series: Zasr [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569007
Comments: 31
Kudos: 110





	Tactile

**Author's Note:**

> Alright folks, so, this one started out as an NSFW request (and there IS an nsfw oneshot involving these two which I am very excited to get started on SOON! I promise) but every time I tried to start it, it just sort of just turned into fluff and angst instead. More likely than not, the set up for the naughtier prompt will be a lot less like this, because my mind just keeps going to these places where they don't even really end up having any s*x because they need to talk about their feelings. The more I think about them, the more I think that they must have so much in common.  
> Anyway, enjoy! Please don't come at me with pitchforks if you cry!! I keep making myself cry when writing stuff.... as always, why am I like this??  
> ALSO!! Shout out to Phyllored!! They were the one who made this request! Don't worry my dude, the spicier stuff is coming!

The thing which started the chain reaction was so small, so unexpected, and so beautiful to Zim.

He found very few things actually beautiful. Things which could kill effectively were beautiful. Certain smells that didn’t make him gag were beautiful. And anything that was palatably sweet that wouldn’t make him puke up his guts if he ate it. 

Skoodge had touched him before, but there was that one moment down in the lab where he’d handed Zim a tool, and their gloved hands had touched. 

Their eyes had met, then. Skoodge looked at him because he was worried of being reprimanded. And Zim looked at him because he was so unused to being touched so gently.  
GIR hugged him sometimes, or grabbed his arm, or laid on his head. Though the robot meant well, and he was warm, it was these kinds of touches that Zim couldn’t say he’d ever experienced. Ever since he was a smeet, he’d been tossed around and reprimanded for his poor judgement, and his size. No other Irken had wanted to come close enough to touch him like he’d seen humans do. Humans were tactile- they kissed and hugged and shook hands.

Zim had once shook his own hand, trying to imagine what it was like to have someone happily touch him. To have someone tell him they were there in such a way that he could tangibly feel it. He found himself doing it again after Skoodge’s hands had accidentally touched him. But he could feel that it was his hand, each feeling the other’s touch. It wasn’t the same. 

Of course it wasn’t the same. 

He wondered if he could build a machine…

No, that was a stupid idea. He couldn’t solve everything with machines. That’d just be silly. 

For once it had to be another Irken, as this was the only one who was willing to get so close.

Since the hand touching incident, he quickly noticed that Skoodge had begun finding excuses to touch him. 

Once, when he crawled up onto the couch beside Zim to watch a movie, he briefly brushed his arm over Zim’s chest to reach the snack bowl. 

Another time, he thanked Zim by touching his shoulder.

And another, he brushed past Zim to reach a switch.

Zim knew what he was doing. And he was too prideful to ask for more. It was maddening waiting for the next moment where Skoodge would touch him, and also that he felt he could not allow himself to do the same. 

And why was Skoodge so friendly with him, anyway? Didn’t he remember how Zim cut him down on Hobo 13? Didn’t he remember how… terrible, Zim was?

It was easier to acknowledge when there was so much he wanted. He wanted to be held so badly. And when he had to face why it wasn’t really happening yet, he could drop the walls he’d fitted around those thoughts of self-loathing. 

“Hey, Zim?”

He’d been worrying his hands, staring into the distance. He whirled around in his chair to face Skoodge, whose entire body looked so warm and soft and inviting. 

“Are you okay? You’re never this quiet.”

Zim wasn’t quiet. He didn’t know how to be. But now that that had been mentioned, he couldn’t make a sound. Couldn’t do anything else but sit in his chair and wish that Skoodge were closer.

“Skoodge,” he managed to choke out at last. “Come near Zim. I demand it.” He made his voice low and shaky near the end like he did when he wanted to put emphasis on something, and it made the other invader smile. The light of the monitor lit him up clearer as he came close, and stopped at a respectable distance. 

“Do you need something?”

“Yes,” answered Zim, immediately. 

Then, as he was unable to say it, or to even make a request so ridiculous, he reached forward to grab Skoodge’s wrists, and pulled his hands to place them on his head. 

“What are you- oh.”

Zim waited a few moments before letting go, hoping that when he did, the hands would stay there. And they did. 

Their faces were close. Almost too close for Zim’s comfort, but he couldn’t, and didn’t want to, look away. Skoodge’s eyes were so similar to his, and reflected back the same fears, the same regrets, the same inadequacies which Zim knew he felt. And Skoodge smiled very softly. 

“So, I was right. You do like those touches.”

And, choking on the words that were clogged up in his throat, Zim nodded slowly. 

“I like touching you, too,” said Skoodge, and did just what Zim hoped and prayed and dreamed about- he started taking his hands down the back of his head, stroking his antennae. 

The rumors were true! All the things he’d heard. The tension melted away from his bones, and he felt the grip that all the nervousness and crippling anxiety had on his back melt away, and he felt his head fall further forward, completely enamored by the sensation that flooded him- of peace. 

Skoodge took a moment, making Zim whine as he pulled his hands away so soon, but climbed up onto the space in the chair next to him. And now, they were very close. Closer than anyone had been to Zim without hurting him or holding him down or pushing him away. 

He pulled Zim close to him, using his very small height advantage to pull Zim’s face under his jaw, resting his head on his chest, so that Zim laid an arm over his soft belly. Then he kept going, taking his hands from the base down easily to the notches on the ends. Zim was close enough that he could feel his pulse, so warm, and so completely like his.

Zim melted. A perplexing sound came out of him, from somewhere in his own chest, like the humming purr of an insect, and like no other whirring he’d ever heard. It was a high, little sighing song, continuous and secretive, like the night sound of crickets. 

Was this what happiness felt like?

Breaking up the little song coming from his chest were quiet, gasping sobs, as he suddenly released, tears falling like rain onto Skoodge, who stopped the loving motions of his hands. 

“O-oh, Zim! What’s wrong? Should I stop? I could stop right now and we don’t ever have to talk about this aga-“

“Please,” Zim choked out. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop don’t stop don’t…. don’t.” His hand clutched at Skoodge’s waist, who watched tears slide down the rubbery material of his uniform. 

“Zim,” Skoodge said, helplessly startled. Zim could hear the vibrations of his voice in his chest as he spoke. “I… has no one ever touched you like this before?”

“No,” Zim said between gasps and chirps. “No one has… ever liked Zim.”

Overcome with sadness, Skoodge released a few solemn tears, looking down at Zim. No one should ever feel so neglected. He knew their race was restrictive, but even Skoodge, who thought himself as short, too wide and fat and ugly, had had his antennae pet by friends in the academy to help him relax, and who slept beside him when he was lonely, and touched his shoulder when they were making sure he was alright.

Zim had had none of that. No one to look kindly in his direction, or to check up on him. He’d been starving to death. 

Skoodge was hopelessly in love. He hoped Zim knew that. 

So, he wrapped one arm under his PAK and hoisted him closer, and kept up the motions, trying to exude through every touch that he was there, and that he was so in love.  
Zim kept crying. It was like the dam had broken. “It- it feels so good,” he said helplessly. Through the tears, the pleased Irken hum of pleasure kept sounding, thready and desperate and hopelessly glad. 

“I-“ Skoodge cut himself off. He shouldn't say that yet. “Any time you want, Zim, I can touch you like this. Okay?”

Zim didn’t answer. He was a strange mix between completely relaxed and tensed up with the force of his shuddering tears. 

“Any time you’re feeling stressed, or scared, or sad, you can come to me. I don’t mind. I like touching you.”

**Author's Note:**

> YEp. Sorry. I couldn't stop thinking about Zim just CRYING because it feels so good to be touched. I keep thinking that Zim might not even have been well liked as a smeet, but I headcanon Skoodge as having had a little more friends back when they were training to be invaders and scientists and what not.  
> More for these two coming soon! I'm planning a series of short little ones like this. A few of them will be happier, but a few of them will be just as angsty, if not more, than this one.  
> Thanks so much for reading!!  
> If you'd like to request something nsfw, (if you like that kinda thing) please feel free to check out my nsfw oneshots fic and read the request guidelines. If you have any questions for me, head on over to tumblr! That website isn't dead yet, is it?  
> Have a great day!!


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